Kewanee Street

This exhibition explores the affinities and connections between the hilltop artistic communities of Kewanee Street and Leighton Art Centre. It is a two person show featuring Malcolm Mooney and Doyle Lane who were neighbours in the ’80s and both lived on Kewanee Street on top of a large hill in El Sereno which overlooks sprawling views of Los Angeles. The street housed several artists that enjoyed a secluded, natural refuge to produce their work away from the hectic city.

Kewanee Street is organized by u’s. Please join us for an Exhibition Reception for Kewanee Street and Morgan Melenka: Nonsuch on April 13, 2024, between 1 and 4 pm. Remarks will be held at 2 pm.

u: … When you lived in Los Angeles, you lived in El Sereno right?
Malcolm Mooney: Yeah, that’s right.
u: Did you know Doyle Lane by any chance?
Malcolm Mooney: He was my neighbor.
u: Holy crap! No way?! On Kewanee Street?
Malcolm Mooney: Yeah, on Kewanee Street.

– excerpt of a conversation between Malcolm Mooney and u in September, 2023 from memory.

This exhibition explores the affinities between the hilltop artistic communities of Kewanee Street and Leighton Art Centre. Malcolm Mooney and Doyle Lane were neighbours in the ’80s and both lived on Kewanee Street on top of a large hill in El Sereno which overlooks sprawling views of Los Angeles. The street housed several artists that enjoyed a secluded, natural refuge to produce their work away from the hectic city.

Malcolm Mooney (b. 1944 in Yonkers, NY) is an artist, poet, singer and lyricist. He received an MFA from California State University, and a BFA from Boston University’s School of Fine Arts and Applied Arts. Schooled in painting and sculpture, Mooney adopts various styles from Abstraction to Assemblage. Yet rather than take a rigid approach to any one in particular, Mooney’s freeform attitude to artmaking possesses a lyricism more closely associated with the rhythms and flows of music. This is perhaps unsurprising given his background as a singer and poet with a knack for improvisation and wordplay, as well as being a visual artist. In 1968 while in Cologne, Mooney met Irmin Schmidt who was putting together Inner Space, the band Mooney would end up fronting and renaming, Can. Can’s rhythmical legacy can be traced through virtually all subsequent developments in contemporary music (and beyond), from post-punk experimentation of the late 1970s to today’s post-disco scenes. Mooney has exhibited his work over the past five decades. Solo and group exhibitions of his work include Can Yoo Doo Right, Galerie Max Mayer, Dusseldorf and Winterfest, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2021), both curated by Saim Demircan, WORKS: 1970-1986, Ulrik, New York (2022), as well as White Room, White Columns, New York (2011), organized by Matthew Higgs. In 2025 Mooney will have a solo exhibition at u’s hut in Diamond Valley. Mooney is currently an instructor of painting at Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary where he lives.

Doyle Lane (1923–2002) was a defining voice in twentieth-century West Coast studio ceramics and an important figure in the community of Black artists who established themselves in postwar Los Angeles. After moving from New Orleans in 1946, Lane worked from a home studio in the El Sereno district of Los Angeles for most of his career, supporting himself as a production potter. His pottery, clay paintings, studio jewelry, and large-scale murals all evince his command of sculptural form and his innovative approach to glazing. Lane disregarded distinctions between fine art and craft, not because they felt limiting, but because he sought to create beautiful, transfixing objects that made their way out into the world and that, when sold, enabled him to live as he preferred. Lane has been the subject of solo exhibitions at David Kordansky Gallery, New York (2023); The Landing at Reform Gallery, Los Angeles (2014); Los Angeles City College (1977); Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles (1968); and Ankrum Gallery, Los Angeles (1967). Group exhibitions include California Design, 1930–1965: Living in A Modern Way, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2012); California Black Craftsmen, Mills College of Art Gallery, Oakland, California (1970); Objects USA, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. (1969); and California Design, Pasadena Art Museum, California (1958, 1960). His work is in the permanent collections of the California African American Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Baltimore Museum of Art; New Orleans Museum of Art; Oakland Museum of Art, California; The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.

u’s is a project space that operated out of a Calgary garage that presented eight solo and group exhibitions between 2019-2020. After leaving Calgary for Diamond Valley in 2020, u’s programming has occurred in various offsite locations around southern Alberta. In 2025, u will open a newly constructed project space in Diamond Valley called u’s hut. Exhibitions of u’s artwork have taken place at: Chris Andrews, Montreal (forthcoming): Backrooms, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zürich, (2024): The Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge, (2022-2024): Wschód, Warsaw, 2022: Bel Ami, Los Angeles, 2019: Utopian Visions Art Fair, Portland, (2018): Carl Louie, London, (2018). On May 26, 2024 between 3-6pm, The Southern Alberta Art Gallery will be launching a publication at u’s hut in Diamond Valley. The publication, project spaces, is the conclusion of u’s multi-year exhibition that began in 2022 and features 24 sculptural collaborations. To attend the launch and follow u’s and u’s hut, please join the email newsletter on uuus.info.

Kewanee Street is presented by Leighton Art Centre and organized by u’s with funding support from Government of Canada Department of Canadian Heritage, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and Calgary Arts Development. Thanks to Mamie~Louise Anderson for generously loaning works from her collection and Ricky Swallow for his curation of Doyle Lane’s work and his support of this exhibition.

Malcolm Mooney’s biography was compiled from the websites of Ulrik, Galerie Max Mayer, and condensed. Doyle Lane’s biography was compiled from Kordansky’s website and condensed.

Featured image: portrait of Doyle Lane by Malcolm Mooney.